Jack the Ripper

About Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper, an unidentified extremist active in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888, represents a singular, horrifying event in late-Victorian history. Although the individual's identity remains unknown, the series of brutal murders attributed to him-the canonical five victims-sent shockwaves through the era, cementing his place in cultural memory as the archetypal modern serial killer. MIT's Pantheon project ranks this figure at #251 in overall historical importance, reflecting the global and enduring cultural footprint of the mystery and the resulting societal impact on policing and public fear.

Despite this relatively high historical ranking, Jack the Ripper commands an extraordinary amount of modern digital attention. His Wikipedia page accrued approximately 3.0M annualized views in 2025, resulting in an Attention Gap calculation indicating he is over-represented by a factor of +6x relative to his objective historical influence. To put this in context, this level of attention substantially surpasses that given to major figures like Alfred Nobel (#159 importance), who garnered less than one-third of those views in 2025. This disparity highlights a pronounced modern appetite for sensationalized true crime over established figures of historical achievement.

Interestingly, while the figure maintains high overall interest, the data suggests a slight cooling of immediate digital momentum. The Year-over-Year change for 2025 was a respectable +19.3%, but the Momentum score, comparing Q1 to Q3 performance, dropped by -36%, indicating that while the figure remains a significant online presence, the immediate surge in public engagement may have slightly subsided over the course of the year.